Welcome to Competitive Innovations, our weekly feature for a number of game lines across the tabletop wargame space. Each week our army list and tactics experts canvass the top tournaments for their game of specialty, looking at the week’s top match-ups and how they played out on the tabletop to let you know what’s hot, what’s not, and what might be coming next as the competitive meta evolves year-round.

This week we have two events, one in Canada and one in the UK. Both of moderate size, so let’s check what’s going on outside the US this week.

AoS Singles Grand Clash 2025

110-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada on February 08 2025. All the lists for this event can be found in Best Coast Pairings.

The Showdown

Mission – Shifting Objectives

Connor Mitchell – Hedonites of Slaanesh
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vs.

Ridge Hanna – Beasts of Chaos
Army List - Click to Expand

Thoughts

Oh man this matchup is so stacked towards Beasts it’s a bit unpleasant.

The mission doesn’t favor Slaanesh very much, as 3 objectives in the center missions tend to favor armies that can plant themselves on 2 out of 3 objectives and weather the storm. While Beasts would rather be charging, they certainly don’t mind planting 20 Bestigors on a point and waiting it out. They also have enough spells to disrupt all the charging cavalry enough that they may not get to make the charge themselves, and the Beasts will be sure to do it for them.

While this Slaanesh list isn’t as ranged heavy as certain lists we’ve seen in recent CI (Which really lay it on thick with blissbarb archers and seekers) it’s still there in the form of a reinforced Archer unit and Bestigors are -1 to be wounded by ranged attacks so that’s not great either.

The Slaanesh list has some great melee options here, lots of Cavalry that can try and charge in, and Glutos and the Keeper of Secrets can put out big damage when they try but it’s just going to be hard to pick up that many Bestigors.

Result

Beasts of Chaos Victory – 43 – 29

Ridge Hanna – Beasts of Chaos – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Bestigors are the Best-igors

Thoughts

Despite the price hike, Bestigor spam is still where it’s at for Beasts of Chaos. The thrust of the list is using the Great Bray Shamans to grant Run and Charge to a unit and to cast the armies incredibly solid spell lore of debuffs. Bestigors then offer a powerful mix of Hammer and anvil, being 3 attacks a piece at Rend -2 for most of the game (thanks to the terrain piece). While they did lose the extra attack, Crit 2 hits on a 5+ if the opponent tries to AoD is still pretty great.

Ungors round the list out as a cheap screening unit that can run away from their attackers, making them a potentially huge pain in the ass to actually pick up. The Tuskgor Chariot is an interesting outlier but makes a solid final pick for the last 110 points that will likely pick up more stuff than it cost to add.

Jordan Duncan – Idoneth Deepkin – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Eel Cavalry

Thoughts

The obvious thrust of this list is the Morrsarr Guard, which are overall very solid cavalry. They do a fair amount of mortal wounds on the charge and then their attack profile is surprisingly solid. With the Aspect of the Sea’s warscroll spell, it’s a solid -3 to saves against Infantry which will let them pick up almost anything they want. Thanks to the Isharann Soulscryer, they can be placed into the Aethersea and get a very reliable 7″ charge when they pop in, instead of 9″.

The Namarti Reavers are a decent shooting unit; two reinforced units put out enough shots that they can do some concerning amount of damage, and since they can run and shoot that 12″ range is a lot further than it looks.

Vincent-Pierre Martineau – Nighthaunt – 3rd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Nighthaunt Good Stuff

Thoughts

While the Nighthaunt’s initial reign of terror has been clamped down some what, the units can still put down decent numbers.

Dreadscythe Harridans, Bladegheist Revenants and Hexwraiths all exist to do basically the same job. They want to get a good charge in, with the Infantry being able to grant a -1 to be hit and the Cav -1 to saves, and then dip out on their next turn if they’re still locked in combat to go hit someone else. Although slightly different flavors of it, these three units absolutely hurt to get hit by and share their job well.

The Guardian of Souls is a decent Hero choice, giving +1 to wound (and Strike Last if it joins the party and charges alongside another unit while Awlrach is great for teleporting units around for better positioning.

The Best of the Rest

There were 5 more players on 4-1 records in the top 8. They were:

• 4th – Simon Glanowski – Seraphon: Lord Kroak leading Kroxigors, Raptadon Chargers and Hunters of Huanchi.
• 5th – Justin Lapointe – Slaves to Darkness: Be’lakor with Chosen and Varanguard and some Darkoath support.
• 6th – Loic Gosselin Delort – Kharadron Overlords: A mid range KO list with a bit of everything. Mostly lots of cheap Arkanaut Companies.
• 7th – Ruben Marin – Idoneth Deepkin: Eidolon of the Sea leading Eels and a turtle.
• 8th – Alexis Boucher – Kharadron Overlords: Another mid-range KO list using pretty much everything in the book.

Realmshift 2025

59-player, 5-round Grand Tournament in Bournemouth, Great Britain on February 08 2025. All the lists for this event can be found on Stats and Ladders.

The Showdown

Brandon Eaton – Skaven
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vs.

Simon Weakley – Slaves to Darkness
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Thoughts

Both these lists are wild, using archtypes we haven’t seen in 4th.

While Stormfiends were once the best of a so-so army in 3rd, they really have struggled to keep up. Their guns just arent as scary as they were (especially compared to ratling guns). But hey this list has those too, even if there aren’t any clan rats to hide inside.

Meanwhile we really haven’t seen Legion of the First Prince, especially using Bloodletters which don’t see much action in their own faction. There is a lot of Synergy here which we’ll discuss below but the Legion of the First Prince list has a lot of interlocking synergies that can really crank up the damage out put once they get into melee, and have far more bodies to spare with the recursion.

Legion of the First Prince walks away with a stunning victory.

Result

Slaves to Darkness Victory – 20-0

Simon Weakley – Slaves to Darkness – 1st Place

The List

See Showdown

Archetype

Be’lakor and the Bloodletters

Thoughts

The Synergy in this list is pretty clever. Bloodletters aren’t bad but they really are banking on those Crit Mortals to do a ton of damage and they cost a lot for only 2 attacks per model. Eternus fixes this problem by granting a unit +1 attack, suddenly 60 attacks is a lot more palatable with an average of 10 mortal wounds per attack. Be’lakor also makes them a fair bit tankier with a +1 to saves and +5 to their control score, all while benefitting from a 4+ ward on himself.

The Flamers of Tzeench operate as artillery fire, while the Furies and Legionnaires are you screening units and objective holders.

Jamie Denny – Sylvaneth – 2nd Place (Undefeated)

The List

Army List - Click to Expand

Archetype

Belthanos and Sylvaneth Good Stuff

Thoughts

Many lists for Sylvaneth right now run Belthanos and Alarielle but in many cases you only need Belthanos for his Run and Charge. Not including Alarielle allows room for more units.

Kurnoth Hunters are your primary bruisers, they hit hard and while most lists can only pack 1, this list fits in 2. The Greatswords are great at cracking high save units with their Crit Mortals, while the Scythes are a more well rounded unit, packing anti-charge but still doing alright on their own. Since the Scythes are in the General’s regiment, it’s likely you’d pick the bodyguard option, since she can either make the enemy hit even worse or the Kurnoths hit better

Gossamids are a decent shooting unit that can be difficult to pin down, since they move d6 after shooting making them an excellent screening unit or just useful for harassment. The Revenant rounds things off by granting a 6+ ward to the army and excellent anti-magic with their +1 to banish and unbinds.

The Best of the Rest

There were 7 more players on 4-1 records. They were:

• 3rd – Mark Paddon – Slaves to Darkness: Belakor and S2D good stuff, with an emphasis on abilities to grant Strike First and Strike Last.
• 4th – Brandon Eaton – Skaven: See Showdown.
• 5th – Paul Buckler – Slaves to Darkness: Belakor and S2D good stuff.
• 6th – Matt Byrne – Stormcast Eternals: Karazai and the Praetors, and the usual suite of Stormcast infantry.
• 7th – James Brick – Soulblight Gravelords: Mannfred with a mix of thralls including Zombies, Grave Guard and Black Knights.
• 8th – Ian Belcher – Flesh-Eater Courts: Ushoran with Crypt Horrors, Morbheg Knights and a Zombie Dragon.
• 9th – Ethan Leach – Stormcast Eternals: An All infantry list with a lot of the big hits like Longstrikes, Prosecutors and Questors.

Wrap Up

Thanks for tuning in! See you again next week!

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